I provide commentary on political economy, police and prosecutorial abuse, and whatever else might come to mind.
Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:24 (ESV)

Monday, January 9, 2012

RIP Carola Jacobson

I have sad news to report: Carola Jacobson, a truly wonderful woman and a mother who stood alone against the Maricopa County Mafia, has succumbed to breast cancer, dying on December 30. Her memorial service is today in Phoenix.

This blog became involved with Carola and the case involving her son (then 14) in the fall of 2010. At the time, her son was accused of some very fanciful charges of having orchestrated several hours of sex play between two young children, and he was being held in juvenile detention.

As Kerwyn and I began to look at the charges, the conduct of police and prosecutors, and the circumstances around which the events supposedly took place, both of us came to understand that what the authorities were alleging were the facts actually were things that could not have happened at all. For example, they claimed that the boy somehow coerced neighborhood children to go into the passively-ventilated and unfinished attic in his Phoenix home in June 2010 and spend several hours during two different days, despite the fact that these acts would have had to have taken place in temperatures upward of 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

The fact that such actions would have created noticeable effects that no one ever observed (because they did not happen) did not faze Phoenix police and Maricopa County prosecutors. They had their narrative, and even though it had been proven wrong, they were going to stick with it at all costs. And the cost was the life of Carola Jacobson.

Last April, I had this post on how Maricopa County officials literally were murdering Carola, and how she had to stop her cancer treatments in order to pay her son's legal bills. Prosecutors knew this and they also knew they had no case, but continued on simply because Maricopa County has a policy that once prosecutors file a case, they do not let actual innocence stand in the way of pursuing it.

You see, according to Maricopa County prosecutors, if a person is charged, that is proof of guilt, and even if the facts show otherwise, the person still is guilty because there are criminal charges. Furthermore, prosecutors there go by the policy that once charges are filed, they MUST get at least a guilty plea to SOMETHING, even if everyone knows that "something" never happened.

In the Jacobson situation, the boy finally agreed to plead to one charge of "disturbing the peace" in order to have the other charges dropped, providing he passed a polygraph and have a psychologist say he was not a danger to the community. However, even after both of those conditions were met, prosecutors STILL were trying to pursue the case simply out of spite.

Why do prosecutors act this way? The logic is perverse, but perversity is the order of the day in American "law enforcement." Prosecutors claim that if it is discovered that they have charged innocent people with crimes that never occurred, the public will "lose confidence" in the ability of prosecutors to do their duties.

Therefore, they argue, it is important that they keep public confidence, so they must pursue wrongly-charged people anyway because if they were to admit they were wrong, the public would lose confidence in them. Get it? Thus, their unwritten rule of not dropping charges even when everyone -- including them -- know they are false. After all, prosecutors openly declared in the infamous Pottawattamie case that: "There is no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed." (emphasis added).

It takes a while to let that one soak in. Prosecutors in this country openly have declared that they have the RIGHT to "frame" people, and that doing so does not violate the rights of innocent people. If that does not infuriate readers, then nothing will.

I content that Maricopa County officials knew exactly what they were doing when they drove Carola Jacobson to an early death. They knew she needed cancer treatments, and by increasing her stress and by forcing her to choose between her son's freedom and medical care, she would choose her son -- and die in the process.

No one in the Maricopa County prosecutors' office will face any sanctions for this outrageous and evil behavior. It is business as usual in Arizona and in the United States of America. If I seem angry, it is because I am.

Rest in peace, Carola. You came to this country not knowing that its "justice" system is a sham and that vengeful and dishonest people would try to destroy you, and I wish I could apologize on behalf of others in this country, but somehow I doubt that will do any good.

I so feel for her and her family. There is no care for the victims of prosecutors who refuse to admit when they are wrong. These prosecutors are a disgrace to a profession that I am glad I am no longer a part of for just the very same reason. They are disgusting and despicable people who, if they don't answer for their crimes here, will surely answer for them in the afterlife. May she rest in peace.

As you may remember, Bill, I ran into the same thing in upstate New York. Eventually I tried to get the SCOTUS to look at the Pottawattamie issue by bringing a petition there, but of course they declined. Even though they said it was an issue they were interested in by taking the Pottwattamie case to begin with, and they didn't get to decide the issue because the case settled.

The SCOTUS believes that the solution to these bad prosecutors and police is professional discipline. Their victims are collateral damage.

I blogged about all this extensively, beginning with a post entitled "Introduction" on or about August 16th of last year:

http://strikelawyer.wordpress.com

The prosecutor involved in the perjury, Tom Moran, is now a judge by the way.

About Me

I teach economics at Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Maryland. We are located on the Allegheny Plateau, and we have cool summers and tough winters.
I am the single father of five children, four of them adopted from overseas and I have two grandchildren. My family and I are members of Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA).